100 Years of the Bolshevik Revolution

100 years ago on this day the Russian proletariat, allied with advanced
sections of the peasantry and led by the Bolshevik party, seized state
power. This began a civil war which consolidated the first proletarian
dictatorship in history to exercise control over a whole country, an
event of world-historic importance for the proletarian struggle. The
proletarian dictatorship in the USSR was eventually overturned, and the
century since October has seen many revolutionary high points and also
many defeats. The Bolshevik revolution, however, has an enduring
relevance to us, to our current efforts here in the US, and to the
efforts of the international communist movement overall. The victory of
this revolution galvanized the masses the world over and showed that
proletarian politics could overcome the forces of reaction. The
Bolshevik Revolution must not be confined to the history books, it is a
living example of what is possible, and what will be achieved again.

The Significance of October

The Bolshevik revolution was the first time in history that workers and
peasants seized and held power country-wide. This was possible because of the
strength of the worker-peasant alliance, the depth of the contradictions in the
provisional government, and also the political awareness that the masses had
gained through years of political activity. A materialist summation of the
successes and failures of the Paris Commune was also an essential theoretical
foundation on which the October Revolution was built. Lessons from the Commune,
at the time a high water-mark of revolutionary advance, were distilled by Marx
and Engels in Civil War in France and continued by Lenin in texts such as
What is to Be Done? and State and Revolution. Understanding the Paris
Commune highlighted for these revolutionary thinkers the need to suppress
counter-revolutionaries, the need for seizure of state power and for
breaking-up the bourgeois state, the likelihood of attack by an international
alliance of reactionary forces, the need for a disciplined and strong party,
and the importance of sharing broadly the political ideas of the advanced
sections of all classes that can be drawn into revolutionary struggle. The
Bolshevik revolution, and the subsequent establishment of the USSR, developed
our understanding of these lessons and also opened up new questions, which the
proletariat will have to grapple with going forward to clear the way for
revolutionary advances.

One key idea that Lenin put forward was the need for a new kind of
political party, one composed of professional revolutionaries, having an
all-country perspective, and able to unite and interrelate all of the
different progressive and revolutionary struggles in Russia. Our work in
the US today is to build such a party, drawing on Lenin’s understanding,
on the subsequent experience in China and especially in the GPCR, and on
the experience of contemporary revolutionary parties like the
CPI(Maoist).

As in the Paris Commune, the imperialist countries of the world were
quick to organize a counter-revolutionary ‘internationalism’ of their
own to put down the revolutionary movement. 18 countries contributed
troops, funds, and arms to the white army. The civil war in Russia was
enormously costly, but it was decisively defeated by the fledgling
revolutionary state, showing once and for all that there is a basis not
only for struggling against reactionary forces but for defeating them.
Lenin was reportedly so overcome with emotion when the proletarian
dictatorship lasted longer than the 71 days of the Paris Commune that he
danced outside in the snow, celebrating the major advance that they had
made. Today we still celebrate and uphold the Bolshevik revolution
because, like Lenin, we recognize that the Bolshevik revolution belongs
to the oppressed and exploited people of the world. It is something that
the reactionaries cannot take away: the knowledge that their days are
numbered, and that we know we can defeat them because it has happened
before!

However, euphoria about the Russian Revolution has opened the door for
the misconception that history progresses in a linear fashion, and that
the victory of the proletariat is guaranteed. At times this has led
revolutionaries to look to formulaically apply a set model or path,
deferring to supposed masters abroad instead of creatively developing a
revolutionary path. The universal lessons of revolutionary history have
a dialectical relationship to the particular conditions of a specific
country and stage of historical development. We do need principled
internationalism, and to uphold revolutionary developments elsewhere,
but we must relentlessly struggle against a bourgeois tendency towards
complacency, as opposed to the proletarian outlook of struggle until
victory.

Maoism – a break with Leninism?

The lessons of the Russian Revolution were not simply supplanted by the
Chinese Revolution. Some have put forward that Maoism represents a break
or total rupture with Leninism – missing the fact that many of the
Bolsheviks’ key breakthroughs were instrumental to the successes of the
Chinese revolutionaries. Negating this aspect of the Chinese revolution
has led some to claim that cadre organization or appropriate platforms
of democratic centralism are outdated concepts that stifle mass
initiative. Against this, we must uphold and defend the need for
organization to serve the masses as they struggle through key
contradictions, and as something which can play a key role in growing
and sustaining mass initiative.

Stalin was correct in defending the basis for socialism to exist in a single
country. This led to the emergence of new questions about how to maintain
a revolutionary road under such conditions. Serious mistakes in Stalin’s
politics were corrected and overcome in the high tide of revolutionary advance
during the GPCR, which included practices of the mass line that were developed
during the Civil War period in China. This experience can provide a way forward
past the stalemate under Stalin’s regime that eventually was seized by the
Kruschevite revisionists. The lessons of the GPCR have relevance for our work
here and now, before the seizure of state power and before the formation of
a revolutionary Party, but these lessons must be seen as extending and
deepening Leninism, and not as a pure negation.

Bolshevism Today

CPI-Maoist recently completed a campaign to Bolshevize their party to
increase revolutionary discipline and correct mistaken tendencies. In one
of the most recent documents from their CC they said1:

We took up Bolshevization campaign in all the States/Special Zones in
the Central Region in 2013 in the leadership of CRB. CRB reviews that this
campaign that went on for three and a half years showed good results. One
third of the Party and PLGA were steeled in this campaign to overcome the
difficult situation and the setback of the movement. Cadres developed more
confidence on the Revolutionary Movement and the surrenders are lesser.
Class struggle has intensified. There is an improvement in retaliation.
The relations with the people have strengthened. There are better
opportunities due to the development of theoretical and political
understanding of the cadres. A new enthusiasm is seen to an extent all
over the Party.

The situation for CPI(Maoist) is quite different than our own, but we in
the US have a similar need to work with greater militancy, and adopt
forms of organization which favor the development of greater conscious
revolutionary activity among the masses. We face a favorable objective
situation domestically, with sharpening contradictions among the ruling
class (as indicated by the election of Trump and other issues such as
inability to pass legislation), a deepening capitalist-economic crisis,
decadence in many aspects of the US state, and sharpening
inter-imperialist conflict internationally. We have also seen a growing
number of relatively spontaneous mass movements and uprisings (Ferguson,
Occupy, BLM, etc.), However, subjectively we face an unfavorable
situation overall. The existing political movements of oppressed and
exploited people are led by the petite-bourgeoisie, labor aristocracy,
and even outright bourgeois leadership (as in much of the so-called
“Resistance” to Trump). As such, we must work to develop professional
revolutionaries capable of playing a leading role in mass struggles. We
must also deepen our links with the masses, and draw more of the masses
into conscious struggle. As the objective contradictions of
capitalist-imperialism deepen, many more spontaneous struggles will
spring up, and we must be prepared to intervene in them so as to develop
proletarian politics.

Russia’s nature as a semi-imperialist power also means that strategic
elements of the Bolshevik Revolution are applicable in our context. Of
course, the status of the US as imperialist super-power means that there
is a particularity to the proletarian struggle here. Revolutionaries in
the US and in other imperialist countries have a particular relationship
to the much more advanced revolutionary movements elsewhere: it is
essential that we build internationalist movements to support
revolutionary parties elsewhere, but it is just as essential that we
build revolutionary movements at home. We cannot reduce our activity to
passive support for e.g. the revolution in India, but we also cannot
miss the opportunities it provides us to expose people in the US to
revolutionary ideas and to show them what is possible.

Dare to Struggle, Dare to Win!

The Bolshevik revolution shook the world, demonstrating to the oppressed
and exploited people everywhere that it is possible to both fight and
win. The Bolshevik revolution still has immense relevance to the
international communist movement today, informing many aspects of how we
seek to organize and work among the masses, how we orient our political
practice, and how we aim to make revolution in this country. We must
continue to draw key lessons from the revolutions in China, Russia, and
the ongoing revolutions in India and around the world, building up the
revolutionary movement and deepening the struggle against opportunist
distortions of that history.